Twitter rolled out its video ad platform Amplify two years ago, but until now it has focused on cutting deals with publishers such as Sports Illustrated, MTV and BuzzFeed.
This week, it announced that Amplify will be open to individual creators, a move that Twitter clearly hopes will dramatically increase traffic with the participation of Internet video superstars that now rack up tens of millions of views on YouTube. Recode has the details:
[Twitter is] going to sell ads alongside creator videos and share that ad revenue with the people making the content. And Twitter is offering very appealing terms.
Unlike YouTube, which gives 55 percent of the money to creators and keeps 45 percent, Twitter is using the same revenue split it already offers other Amplify video partners, like the NFL: 70 percent to the content creator and 30 percent back to Twitter, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
Of course, Twitter needs to offer an appealing revenue split like this. It’s nowhere close to the video destination YouTube and even Facebook have become, and it’s late to the game when it comes to paying creators. The network’s high-profile stars have wanted a revenue split for some time — it’s been a point of contention for the company’s stable of “Vine stars,” many of whom have left for places like YouTube where their videos actually make money.
Twitter is testing the waters with some caution. For now, it's only opening up the ad program to individual creators living in the U.S.
As the Recode report notes, Twitter is hardly seen as a video destination for users in comparison to Youtube. Hence, it may face an uphill battle in getting Internet stars such as "PewDiePie" to make the jump.
PewDiePie, a 20-something Swedish man, has more than 47 million subscribers who tune in to watch him play video games while delivering entertaining running commentary. He is racking up millions of dollars in ad-related earnings per month and the audience people like him have built is highly valuable to YouTube, who could make any number of changes to its own revenue-sharing program to thwart Twitter's gambit.
Still, "CMOs want to pay attention to this in case the influencers come and Twitter traffic increases," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Cindy Zhou.
While Twitter has a tough road ahead of it, "I can see them striking separate deals with some key influencers to entice them to the platform beyond the 70 percent revenue share," Zhou adds. "There may also be an opportunity for early adopters to partner with an influencer to create unique content for Twitter and be in front of the curve."
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